From party's rejections to the top post, Chinese Prez Xi Jinping's journey so far

New Delhi, Sep 26: China President Xi Jinping has been in the news since Saturday as rumour mills are abuzz with the news that he was placed under house arrest after he returned to China after attending the SCO summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Social media is flooded with questions and speculations about the whereabouts of Jinping, though there has not been any official statement on the same.

Well, Xi is controversy's favorite child and his life journey so far is laced with many issues and controversies. Let us look at Xi's political journey from the beginning to when he became the president of China.

Rise to power:

Xi Jinping was appointed president of China in November 2012. The Chinese supreme leader has control over Communist Party, military and state.

Xi is the general secretary of The Communist Party of China, chairman of the Central Military Commission, and President of the People's Republic of China.

Beijing became more assertive and authoritarian after Xi took control of China. After taking control of the world's largest country by population, Xi started to push China as a superpower in rivalry with the United States.

Ever since Xi came to power, he is known to have put several leaders and top bureaucrats in jail for corruption and dissent.

The National People's Congress removed the two-term limit as president in 2018, and now Xi can remain the president lifelong. Xi's term was due to expire in 2022.

It's to be noted that following the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, two consecutive five-year presidential terms was written into China's constitution by Deng Xiaoping to avoid one-man rule.

Xi has a very powerful image in China and he has centralised the power.

The thought of Xi is mentioned in the Chinese constitution. In 2018, the preamble of the constitution was amended to mention his thought.

He is the second leader to have got this honour after Mao Zedong, who founded the People's Republic of China in 1949.

After that his thought is mentioned in the constitution, any challenge to the president would be a threat to Communist Party rule.

Early life and struggle:

Xi Jinping was born in 1953. He is the son of Xi Zhongxun. Zhongxun was a Chinese communist revolutionary who fought with Mao Zedong in the Chinese civil war.

Xi is not new to politics because of his background.

But in 1962, his father was purged before the cultural revolution and put in jail.

Young Xi was sent to the countryside for re-education and hard labour in the poor village of Liangjiahe for seven years. Xi was among of millions of youth who were sent to be re-educated by farmers and labourers.

Xi tried to join the Communist party several times but he was declined because of his father's stands.

He was finally accepted into the party in 1974, he made sure to rise to the top. He worked hard to become a local party secretary in Hebei province. Later on, he moved to other senior roles including party chief of Shanghai, China's second city and financial hub.

Xi's rising graph in party helped him to its top decision making body, the Politburo Standing Committee, and in 2012 he was chosen as the president.

Personal life:

Xi is chemical engineering graduate from Tsinghua University. Xi's first wife was Ke Xiaoming. His second wife is singer Peng Liyuan.

The couple has one daughter, Xi Mingze. Mingze was born on June 27, 1992. She studied French at her high school, Hangzhou Foreign Languages School.

Vision:

Since Xi took control of China, he brought in several economic reforms to control slowing growth. He cut down state-owned industries and reduced pollution, as well as its One Belt One Road trade project.

China became more assertive in the global arena. Be it South China Sea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Beijing left no stone unturned to voice against the world. Also, observers say that it adopted a policy to pump billions of dollars into poor Asian and African countries as investments. Some say the investment policy is a debt trap policy of China.

In China, Xi started a war on corruption in which several top leaders and bureaucrats were put in jail for allegations of corruption. It is learnt that XI put his dissents in jail in the name of the war against corruption.

Harsh stands:

Since he took over the country, numerous cases of clampdowns on freedoms were reported. Thousand of dissidents and human rights lawyers were reportedly arrested in China.

Millions of Muslim Uyghurs were detained in Xinjiang province. They are reportedly being used as forced labour and the women being forcibly sterilised.

In 2019, thousand of people staged a protest against plans to allow extradition to mainland China. But, the descents were reportedly crushed.

The new law gave Beijing powers to reshape life in Hong Kong, criminalising what it calls secession, subversion and collusion with foreign forces, with the maximum sentence of life in prison.

After Hong Kong, China is after Taiwan. China often threatens Taiwan by saying that Taiwan is an inseperable part of China.

Recently, China conducted military drills in the Taiwan straits following US Nancy Pelosi's Trip to Taipei.

Beijing views Taiwan as a breakaway province but democratic Taiwan sees itself as a sovereign state.